Leak Suggests NSA Was Deep in Middle East Banking System
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What I don't want them doing is hoovering up internal comms traffic without a warrant and passing it to people like DEA. That is exactly not thier job.
Frankly, it's a bit bizarre to me that US citizens don't understand how to draw the distinction between those two sceanrios...
I'm an European citizen and I don't think it's Ok for any agency to spy in others' banking systems (or in anthing for that matter). If it was Iran doing this the US would go to war with them. If it was Palestine who was spying on US banking systems the US military would be killing left and right until nothing but corpses would remain, but is it OK for the NSA to shit on International laws to make America "safe"? The NSA is out of control of the American people, as all the other agencies. It seems like the US government and ther agencies feel they can do whatever they want, wherever they want and however they please, and no, that's not OK for the rest of the world. And about that 9/11 funding thing... It was proven that the CIA had knowledge about the attack before it happened... Do you really think they need to spy on the entire world to stop another one? And given the recent events, do you even think they need banks to attack the US, France or any other place? Gathering this information seem to have much more to do with controlling foreign goverments than with preventing terrorism. Please stop using 9/11 as an excuse for everything, there are lots of countries which have suffered many more terrorist attacks in the last 5 years and don't use it ad an excuse to fuck with everyone else in the planet.
It's pretty absurd to suggest we would kill people just because we caught a spy agency snooping on us. We've caught and rebuked foreign spy agencies all the time. The usual punishment is covert retaliation (escalating malware attacks, etc.), and the times when it isn't covert (like with the Russia revelations), responses usually involve sanctions and condemnation.
NSA would be doing the American people a disservice if they weren't competing with the rest of the spy agencies out there. It's just a fact of life. We just want them to do it without warrantless mass surveillance of US citizens.
>It was proven that the CIA had knowledge about the attack before it happened...
They didn't. To suggest they did is to allege a massive conspiracy. They received hints it might happen, but intelligence agencies receive tens of thousands to millions of pieces of new information per week, 99.99% of which turns out to be nothing. You can apply this argument to almost every war or attack in history (including Pearl Harbor). Sieving the signal out of the noise isn't easy.
I'm an American but neither a nationalist nor a patriot. I just realize they're doing their job. I also realize and acknowledge Russia wouldn't be doing its job properly if they didn't try to influence the Presidential election.
If you look at "Interview #07 (Washington, DC) by FF4Films on Youtube, Richard Clarke makes this allegation. It's pretty clear the situation is quite different than just saying the warnings were too non-specific to notice.
-/edit- here: https://cpj.org/2007/12/french-journalist-investigated-over-... -edit/-
Then again 9/11 is not a valid excuse as the US has been orders of magnitude worse for decades, had been preparing for such an event but did nothing and even the contrary when it actually happened and then used it to go to war to unrelated countries for unrelated reason (access to oil). So please just stop brandishing 9/11 as a justification for doing more of what the US have been doing all along.
I agree with you. That isn't what I was arguing at all.
Seems like mass suveillance by western agencies is jut a way to cover for their own incompetence. How many terrorist attacks in how many countries over the last few years have we heard that 'the suspect was known to intelligence agencies' and yet they still couldn't stop jack shit.
The whole intelligence apparatus in NATO countries needs reforming.
>They didn't. To suggest they did is to allege a massive conspiracy.
Please be smarter than that, claims of conspiracy to discredit something is just making you look like an uneducated fool.
Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Ladin_Determined_To_Strike... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_befo...
> It's pretty absurd to suggest we would kill people just because we caught a spy agency snooping on us.
The US kidnaps, imprison, tortures and kills innocent people. I will not say all the time, but it happens often enough to not be a rogue agent or an isolated case, more like orders and policy.
Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_site and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_rendition and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_by_the...
I'd be terrible shocked if this is not just Hollywood-level paranoia, the kind most people around the world merely laugh at. This idea that countries are at some kind of equal footing with regard to those things, "doing the same" with the 10.000ft gorilla that spends more than 3 times for its military what the next player (China) does -- more than the next 7 players combined.
There are maybe 4-5 countries that even remotely do anything like that on a global scale. Most countries merely track their neighbours's and traditional (regional) enemies.
I'd say just the US, the UK and France (ex big colonial powers that have fucked half the world over), Israel (because it has people everywhere, who, due to the terrible persecutions Jews faced in WWII can be very loyal to the cause of the "homeland" even if its not their actual country of citizenship), and China (because of sheer size and economic/global rise) have any such capacity, intent and power. USSR back in the day too, modern Russia, not so much. France a little, as an ex-colonial power. Germany has its secret service too, but not much to write home about either.
And even of those few, even fewer have the history, military and diplomatic means to pressure and reach of using those things to mess with other countries the world over.
I sincerely doubt that a country could pull out a stuxnet with a couple $100,000 0day and a hundreds of people with computer science diplomas. There's a reason stuxnet was almost instantly pinned on the US and that reason is that apart from maybe China and Russia (who seem to have fun hacking the US and not getting caught or exposed) no other country can match the US.
No one is making that case
This is bizarre to witness.
It's amost like as an American you need to be safe in the perception that the US is #1 always, even in truly terrible things.
No, but doing anything with the data, and being able to get away with doing it, is.
https://qz.com/954265/russian-hacker-pyotr-levashov-arrested...
It's not about being extradited. It's about your country being bombed, economically pressured, embargoed, messed with diplomatically, through your neighbors given preferential treatment and arms, etc.
The kind of not getting away with it I mean involves the impact of the world's #1 military and economy fucking your country over in retribution.
It's not like the US would even feel a pinch if some middle eastern country embargoes its products. Now reverse that, or add even more extreme measures to it (doing to Iraq level measures) and you get the point.
This is trivially incorrect (unless you employ a circular definition).
They are doing this, and yet, no war. So what does that do to your claim?
> If it was Palestine who was spying on US banking systems the US military would be killing left and right until nothing but corpses would remain,
Oh please, you must know nothing about geopolitics to think this is true. I'm 100% certain Palestine spies on Israel as much as they possibly can, and Israel does the same to them.
I doubt Palestine spies on the US, but only because it's not in their interests, not because they are worried about being killed.
> Gathering this information seem to have much more to do with controlling foreign goverments than with preventing terrorism.
And? Is that bad or something? That's what countries do - if they can.
You might wish you lived in a utopia where everyone was super nice to everyone else, and no one took anything not theirs.
But in the real world if people can take power, they will. It would be stupid for any country not to do anything they can to stop or manage that.
> there are lots of countries which have suffered many more terrorist attacks in the last 5 years and don't use it ad an excuse to fuck with everyone else in the planet.
You really believe that the US is the only country that spies?
Allow to offer a single correction
> That's what countries do - if they can.
It's not countries but spying agencies that need to justify their existence now that the cold war is over. Or governments.
But I sincerely doubt that worldwide a national referendum about "should we use our resources and power to spy on other countries and try to control foreign government" would get close to a majority of yes in most countries around the world apart maybe in the US and north korea and maybe a few others. And even for the US I'm not so sure.
I think you're really underestimating how much counties spy on each other. Russia stole nuclear secrets from the US and China was recently implicated trying to get plans for US fighter jets. I think stealing military tech is much closer to an act of war than watching people's finances? How about assassinating people you don't like on a foreign countries soil? Because places like North Korea do that stuff regularly.
I'm just saying that this isn't even close to the worst stuff that's come out and I think your outrage is a bit much
It's also practically less attractive to countries that are not superpower aligned: they have much less experience and resources, and diplomatically have more to lose if things go wrong.
> How about assassinating people you don't like on a foreign countries soil?
The US is famous for being a champion in this category, France under its current president also competes for appearing in the high score table, Israel is known for this too. But the US still wins because on top of the secret assassination programs and drones, contraction mercenaries to do the killing, financing local dissident to do the killings, it also invades countries and makes war which it's pretty much the only one doing, even north korea doesn't do that, maybe because they cannot afford the multi trillions of military spending the US does.
You don't get to call someone out for being better than you at the game. I mean really this is your argument? Everyone does it, but the NSA is so much better only they are somehow immoral but everyone else is ok?
I just cannot wrap my head around that argument. If a spy agency exists, it's job is to spy. Why would anyone be surprised or upset to find out... they did their job?
In addition being orders of magnitude better resourced than other countries' spy agencies, the US intelligence machine don't seem to be politically restrained by the traditional spook moderators of popular support or respect for other countries' sovereignity.
You can think that German spooks don't listen to Trump's phone calls because they have less resources and possibly competence, but that's because the politicians and voters choose to rein them in.
This is a great point. I think it actually says what I meant far better.
The US created and funded these organizations. As a US citizen them doing their jobs (foreign intelligence gathering) is exactly what I expect of them.
I also am vehemently opposed to their vast budgets and power. It would be nice to "reign them in" by vastly reducing their resources, but there doesn't seem to be much political willpower for that. I firmly think that in your example, it's simple resource starvation - not due to lack of willpower or competence to do so.
I think the data sharing (and other similar things) agreements the CIA/NSA uses is absolutely problematic, as it's an obvious end-around the constitution and should have been slapped down hard. Once these details came out the agency should have been shut down.
We're obviously on different ends of the political sphere but I try not to be too judgemental about it because I'm well aware that there's propaganda on all sides.
That said, a lot of US citizens, especially the flavor you find on HN are not big fans of the NSA either.
I continue to find it odd that folks in the EU have some reality distortion mechanism when it comes to what's going on in thier home countires..and yes it's not all that are wired into the 5-Eye's thing, but its most.
Then again cyberspying and cyberwarfare is not the same as traditional spying. In this domain France is a newcomer and has only recently entered the game and is struggling to catch up.
In matter of more traditional spying to me that historically the UK was on top though it is true that France has quite a history of internal political spying and intrusion in other countries but it's mostly in Africa and colonies.
Usually France lags behinds the US, for example it's only a few years after the CIA through in-Q-tel took control and brought back the chip card technology to the US that France played catch-up and created the french equivalent to in-Q-tel (1999), the "Fonds stratégique d'investissement"(2008) and by the time it got created and bought back gemplus in-q-tel had long finished its mission and was selling its shares.
Moreover there's a notion of scale at play, the US is a few steps further if not a couple order of magnitude more into it. And this may have something to do with Eisenhower 1961's warning: we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military– industrial complex.
At the times France was still in the process of rebuilding itself from WW2 and dealing with the 1958 coup d'etat, which may or may not explain why France has been lagging behind the US.
It's not just you. But it's a very select few apparently that understand this.
If the NSA exists, the entire point of it existing is to spy on foreign countries - allied or not.
The only legitimate argument if you're against this is if you feel the NSA and CIA should not exist at all. I will say you are incredibly naive if you say no, but will allow for reasonable people to differ in opinion.
Anything else is simply someone not spending 5 seconds thinking geopolitics and logic through. The point of a spy agency is to spy. Don't pretend to be outraged when they do their damn jobs.
To me as a living being on this planet I strongly think no intelligence agency should exist at all for the simple reason that borders and countries should be abolished so we could all be earthlings sharing a planet. Buuuuut it seems the ones in position of domination such as US and old colonial Europe tend to disagree with this view.
But this personal view does not prevent me from using my brains and senses to observe and having a certain understanding of how a minority of humans in position of power defend their own interest and push their own agenda and try to get every edge they can by whatever mean is available.
The point of a spy agency is not to spy, it is to spy and not get caught, because when caught now it's a whole different game. So given the accumulation of recent leaks I would say that NSA and CIA do not so such a good job. And given the nature of the revelations and what is exposed it seems they go too far past what is acceptable. Compared to how China or Russia hack into the US without getting caught or exposed with a fraction of the US budget this paints a picture of an overspending of budget for arguably poor results for those agencies that not only get exposed but also fail at their mission of protection.
Europe includes 51 independent states. Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey are the transcontinental countries, partially located in both Europe and Asia. Armenia and Cyprus politically are considered European countries, though geographically they are located in the West Asia territory.
Also, there are 28 member states in the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden ...
Granted, five eyes is more like fifteen these days, but still, doesn't make it right or just because everyone is doing it we should just tow the line, doff our caps and cry for more. Some of us have been fans of Dickens and Kafka far too long to know that.
[Edit] - Going to try and update this post here because I'm not allowed by HN to post very often currently...
--- snip ---
First of all I don't see any comments here that say that the US are the only country that spies. I mention this since it seems to be a straw man that is stuck on repeat.
Secondly, surveillance done right takes a heck of a lot of resources and infrastructure; and even though all countries and humans partake, some have rather more resources and connections to accomplish these goals than others.
It's kind of like the 1% - there's nothing wrong "technically" with 1% having half the cash (given that it is ultimately reinvested), the problem is abuse of power that comes with it and lack of oversight.
Ultimately, we have seen stories repeatedly regarding US and Western technologies for surveillance, not Palestinian, Iranian or Luxembourgian... and this is another one.
How many is that this week/month/year/decade?
My family has been in and around SIGINT/COMINT for decades so I'm hardly surprised, although it is a bit surprising how comedic it is seeing people comparing the capabilities of the NSA to that of nations with less GDP than Luxembourg.
I think it is good to "Have the conversation", whether it be right or wrong to infiltrate SWIFT et al.
Spying gets a bad rap. When it works correctly everyone is a little better off for it, because it prevents surprises on the part of the people whose mistakes can be most costly.
Although many of NSA's programs rely on "passive" electronic collection, the agency is authorized to accomplish its mission through active clandestine means,among which are physically bugging electronic systems and allegedly engaging in sabotage through subversive software.
Though I cannot pinpoint it on NSA, I would say stuxnet is a good example of sabotage and probably involves the NSA.
As a European citizen how did you feel about Europe seizing any deposits over €100k from Cyprus' second largest bank when it decided it had debts that needed collecting? And then suggesting that this should be a 'model for future bailouts?'
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/25/cyprus-bailout...
see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_Cypriot_financ...
But now let's provide some context here, the EU had to bailout Cyprus as a consequence of the US subprime mortgage crisis. So the EU had to clean up the mess made by the US.
Though I do agree there are some rotten things on the financial side of the EU, mainly the IMF and the ECB but also that countries have to pay for the private debt of banks. But this is not so different from the rest of the world and other central banks. Though quite scaled down it's not so far from the 700 billion bailout of banks in the US and the ECB and other central banks and federal reserve buying 2.5 trillion of government debt and bank asset the largest such move ever while EU and US government were injecting 1.5 trillion in their major banks.
Whether you call it a "one-time levy" or the assets being seized is splitting hairs. The result is the same. Given that the money had already been taken, it would be hard to apply the levy more than once.
> Most of this money belonged to foreigner using cyprus as a tax haven.
This is just a smear against depositors. They had their money in a Cypriot bank account and had a reasonable expectation that it would stay there. Their intent for moving the money into Cyprus is irrelevant and certainly doesn't give anyone the right to arbitrarily seize assets.
> Those who lost 3 Millions in the process were given a 7 millions discount on buying the Cypriot citizenship.
How generous. This is like buying a faulty good and being given store credit for the same store as compensation.
So in one way the customers outcome did not really change from a real bankruptcy, while reducing the risk of crashing the entire bank system in Cyprus, possibly EU and in that case the world.
The sum is not extraordinarily high though so I suspect that quite a few rather ordinary people saw their retirement savings evaporate.
I also suspect that the bank have been paying dividends to it's shareholders for many years, so it would have been nice to let them bail the bank in one way or another instead of ordinary people - but I doubt that it's possible to do that legally after the fact. The best you can do is to step in and buy the bank for nothing - but that won't remove the debts.
I suppose that it would be possible to write laws that make the banks shareholders be responsible for any debts somehow, just like some other types of incorporations - and why not? Owning a bank seems to be pretty risk-free if you can just use your customers money to bail yourself out...
maybe not as the bank ceo later admitted that the bank had probably been insolvent as early as 2008, even before cyprus entered the eurozone.
From the perspective of most Americans, the IC are loyal soldiers who brought nearly the whole globe under American control at a price below that of our latest fighter plane. Total information warfare superiority. The new nuclear dominance.
Now, you (and I) might find that unsavory, but for people who are fans of real politik, it wasn't even a question. If anything, the IC should've done more to neutralize Chinese and Russian capabilities.
I would argue the real politik view is simplistic, but yours is also naive. You're simply wrong about the US going to war if others did the same -- they do and we don't. We retaliate in cyberspace, dissident funding, etc. That state of continuous covert warfare is normal, everyone does it, and there are many reasons the US wants to dominate at it.
The only criticism I have of the IC is failing to advance our defensive capabilities, not for keeping us at the forefront of the cyber battlefield.
Nations have always jockeyed for economic advantage, harmed the cohesion of rival nations (eg, psyops and funding dissidents), and advanced groups in those nations ideologically sympathetic to themselves. Sometimes it spills in to small scale conflicts or actual revolutions or wars.
"Why do you bribe? It's not because your companies are inherently more corrupt. Nor is it because you are inherently less talented at technology. It is because your economic patron saint is still Jean Baptiste Colbert, whereas ours is Adam Smith. In spite of a few recent reforms, your governments largely still dominate your economies, so you have much greater difficulty than we in innovating, encouraging labor mobility, reducing costs, attracting capital to fast-moving young businesses and adapting quickly to changing economic circumstances. You'd rather not go through the hassle of moving toward less dirigisme. It's so much easier to keep paying bribes."
Boy, have I got disappointing news for you. I mean, I don't know what to tell you other than what you'd like and how the world works are very much disconnected. IOW, "they all do that, sir." If we pitched bombs at each other every time we caught a spy in our home country, we'd do nothing else.
Espionage is an organizational reality. To pretend you don't have to care about such things is like being a tourist that wanders into the bad part of town flashing money everywhere and then expresses astonishment if their pocket is picked or they are otherwise taken advantage of.
I mean come on, U.S. decries chemical weapons use in Syria, the official spokesperson makes a Godwin statement about how even a certain bad guy in history didn't drop them out of airplanes on civilian population, and yet umm hello?? Napalm?? Courtesy of Dow Chemical company...
And as for bad things going on in the world, it's approximately a genocide (that it's in the not so gray area, means we've hit the "never again" line in my view) what's going on in Yemen. We looked the other way from genocides in Sudan, and Congo, and Timor. Only so many resources for things like that when there are only so many resources available to recoup the cost. That's the reality.
It's to a great degree U.S.A. Inc. and about the best you can hope for is to not repeat the vicious events of the past. The last Korean war, where no one was really ready for it, wanted it (except Kim), and weren't fighting with today's Weapons Inc. let alone nukes, yet it still got more than a million people killed.
So yes there's a lot about the U.S. to be irritated at, but the world is complex and you have to judge each case.
What about Europol?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/europol-says-data-sharing-on-po...
Iran hacked a US drone in 2011 and we didn't go to war with them over it.
But to oppose the idea of meddling in the international banking system is to oppose the very idea of an intelligence service.
Such meddling is the core mandate of organized intelligence. It's exactly what all intelligence services have done since time immemorial. Following the money is the oldest trick in the book.
But don't think it's only the US, this is a trend we can notice in Europe too.
As if the conditions of life were evolving towards possible uprising due to say growing poverty, diminishing buying power, increase in food insecurity, increasing gap between the rich and poor, unsustainable economy closing on its limits, etc. and the governments taking precautionary measures to protect themselves.
Spying on merkels phone annoyed me, but this is not the same. Also it was proven the CIA had knowledge of 911. Do you have a source of that?
With the internet, I have never been surprised by US govt shenanigans. The internet is largely a product of the US military. It was originally designed for government communications in nuclear war. I say the same when people mention GPS. It's very civilian appearing but make no mistake it's very much connected to military.
edit to add:
I re-read this piece by Scneier every now and then....
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/16/opinion/schneier-internet-surv...
Somewhat similar: NSA's Dan Geer on how we are all intelligence officers now.
https://www.theinternetpatrol.com/security-expert-dan-geer-w...
It may have been like that for a long time, but it's not entirely true anymore. The leaks show an emergent trend of cooperation between the western intelligence agencies, i.e. the "fourteen eyes".
This is the most worrying part IMO. Now you have a small elite sitting on enough power to take out anyone or control pretty much all information on the internet. We laugh at Baidu and Yandex, but if these people want something they'll have it.
As if I took a knife and stabbed someone with it, and say well it's not that bad, look those kids over there they fight all the time, see right here the one in shorts here kicked the other one with the baseball cap who's crying.
I mean you can't be seriously suggesting that Namibia can engage in spying as the US does, and this is true for the large majority of the countries around the globe.
1) yes of course I know about HN demographics
2) you should care about that distinciton because this is true for any nation/state.
until such time as we evolve dramtically as a species these types of organizations have a place. it's distasteful perhaps, but a necessary thing.
getting emotional about it impedes a rational consideration.
e.g. US can collect foreigners and UK can collect foreigners?
Do you think spy agencies should be able to swap data about those foreigners?
Because the two in combination allows the UK to spy on US citizens and give it to the US, without the US needing to spy on its citize s
w.r.t. your second question, this is where things start to get grippy. see my response to another question referencing "realpolitik". in this context, then whether or not they should becomes a secondary consideration at the policy level.
The difference is that I come from a country where secret service (both domestic and from other USSR-friendly countries) used to be almost almighty ~25 years ago. And I've seen the damage it inflicted on the society (including some family members) by eliminating any form of dissent or sign of disagreement with the government. Considering how much cheaper and easier dragnet-like surveillance got over the past few years ... well.
You may point out this particular case (compromising SWIFT bureau) is different, i.e. it's the type of action you'd expect from NSA-type intelligence agencies. But it's a mistake to see the agencies as independent / isolated entities. The rest of the leak is however interesting as it shows how hoarding of NOBUS 0days fails, because it's never really NOBUS.
> One of the most contentious Snowden revelations — first reported on September 8, 2013 by Globo and then repeated a week later by Der Spiegel — was that NSA’s Tailored Operations group was hacking SWIFT, the international financial transfer messaging system. It was contentious because when the servers moved to Europe, the US and EU negotiated access for the US, access with protections for Europeans that happened to be oversold.
[...]
> A number of people have been arguing that the mostly Middle Eastern financial institutions that seem to be the focus here — things like the Al Quds Bank for Development and Investment — are legitimate intelligence targets. And they are, within the framework of NSA’s spying in the US. But that ignores that the US had an agreement in place about what legitimate targets were (which, according to MEPs who tried to oversee the agreement, were violated anyway). Also, a number of our Arab allies may not be too happy to see their own banks targeted.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/04/14/nsa-continued-double-d...
I also agree that it's reasonable in theory to do incidental collection.
But the problem is that the NSA began doing a lot of this stuff without democratic oversight, and officials lied to the American people about it.
The deception and lack of democratic oversight makes the programs not OK. The secrecy and lack of auditability create way too much potential for abuse.
The intelligence services would never tolerate a system that offered a complete, unalterable log of all surveillance so that courts could decide in hindsight if agents needed jail time for breach of protocol or inappropriate use of the tools.
So instead we get this utterly backward system where there is great ceremony around the FISA warrants which are issued (and once in a while denied) but meanwhile any agent in the midst of an investigation can easily enough cast the net over whomever he/she chooses using incidental collection.
Police states are bad/dangerous because they make it possible for the regime to intimidate and persecute political enemies. We've seen so many hints of this lately that I'm shocked anyone can support continuing the status quo.
The words are a mix of propaganda, historical but now obsolete, projected image, biased self-perception and even party true but only when applied to the US not to the rest of the world.
Other countries also engage in a similar propaganda, but only a few have the nuisance potential of the US, such as China.
Also some of those countries that were hacked namely Qatar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi are allies of the U.S in the region and in the "war on terror." For instance Qatar allows the U.S to use Al Udeid Air Base for conducting operations into Iraq and Afghanistan. Do you not see a problem with NSA hacking U.S. allies?
The definition of an "ally" is a curious thing. I prefer to think of the ME as more of a realpolitik scenario. The countries you name lack any real connection to the US beyond the realpolitik at the end of the day.
You might want to look up Occidental Petroleum of Houston, Texas:
"Occidental's oil and gas operations in the Middle East are in Oman, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. The region produced 294 thousand barrels of oil equivalent (1,800,000 GJ) per day, representing approximately 46% of 2016 total worldwide production.The region also held 28% of the company's proved reserves in 2016.
Occidental is the largest independent oil producer in Oman. In Qatar, Occidental is the second-largest oil producer offshore and is a partial owner in the Dolphin natural gas project, which delivers gas to Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
In early 2011, Occidental partnered with Abu Dhabi's state oil company in developing the Shah Field, one of the largest natural gas fields in the Middle East, through a joint venture known as Al Hosn Gas. Al Hosn Gas became operational in 2015."[1]
You might want to also read up on the Dolphin gas pipeline in the UAE as well:
"Occidental Petroleum of the US and Total of France each have a 24.5 percent equity stake in the Dolphin gas pipeline project."[2]
Then there's the old U.S stalwarts: Chevron Over-seas Petroleum (Qatar), Pennzoil Qatar Oil Co, Mobil Oil Qatar. And Penzoil, Caltex and Shell are all in U.A.E as well.
I would say military bases, arms sales, joint infrastructure projects and U.S business interests all qualify as pretty substantial connections to the U.S.
Sources:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occidental_Petroleum
[2] http://www.uae-embassy.org/about-uae/energy/uae-and-global-o...
And the UK's HSBC has also been shown to be quite keen on doing business with terrorists and drug cartels:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/11/hsbc-us-mon...
As did the U.S's Wachovia Bank - now part of Wells Fargo:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico...
As did the U.S's Bank of America and Western Union:
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/03/20/291934724/a...
And in the case of HSBC the decision was made to not to pursue the case, and it had nothing to do with jurisdiction.
In the best case scenario they are given a fine that's a fraction of the profit they made doing this. So the incentive is to keep at it unfazed and pay fines.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-moneylaundering-...
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-qatar-idUSKBN0FJ2M8201...
Despite hosting this strategic military installation,
Qatar is not always a strong Western ally. Qatar has
allowed the Afghan Taliban to set up a political office
inside the country and has close ties to Iran, including a
shared natural gas field. According to leaked documents
published in The New York Times, Qatar's record of
counter-terrorism efforts was the "worst in the region".
The cable suggested that Qatar's security service was
"hesitant to act against known terrorists out of concern
for appearing to be aligned with the U.S. and provoking
reprisals".
You should have looked a little further:
"Senior leaders of the Taliban are currently stationed in Doha, Qatar. The original purpose for the Taliban leaders’ presence in Qatar was to open an office that would facilitate reconciliation between members of the Taliban, Afghanistan, the U.S. and other countries. However, shortly after the opening of the Taliban office in 2013, the office was closed by the Qatari government."[1]
>"According to leaked documents published in The New York Times, Qatar's record of counter-terrorism efforts was the "worst in the region"."
That cable was part of the wikileaks dumps and the quote was widely seen as both suspect and confounding:
"The details offered in these cables are particularly strange when compared with a 2008 Congressional Research Service report for Congress.
The U.S. State Department called Qatar's terrorism support since 9/11 "significant," according to the CRS report. Since the attacks, Qatar established both a Combating Terrorism Law and the Qatar Authority for Charitable Activities (QACA) in March of 2004."[2]
>"and has close ties to Iran, including a shared natural gas field."
So you are faulting a country for having shared business interests with their neighbor in the region? You realize shared business interests represent stability right? You also realize that the Iran is fighting Isis in both Iraq and Syria right?
sources:
[1] "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban_in_Qatar"
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/11/qa...
All I'm saying is that it is important to look at what the left hand is doing even while praising the actions of the right hand.
Some of the Middle East countries want to be spied on. Imagine if a Saudi prince started embezzling. Who inside SA would even attempt to investigate.
With US spying on SWIFT, the Americans can leak a few juicy details to a few people of power in Saudi Arabia and the prince gets told to stop it.
No embarrassment for anyone, no convictions.
I really don't understand why this is a difficult concept for people to understand.
I pretty much assume MI6 is spying on me as well, but I don't care - because they don't have jurisdiction over me. The NSA or CIA spying on me? That's an entirely different story.
It's incredibly naive to think nation states will not spy on each other - allied or not. Alliances change on a whim, if you have a spy agency it'd be criminally negligent not to spy on your allies.
When that intelligence is redirected and used to control internal politics? Now it's a problem.
In Europe this agreement is famously known since at least Echelon and Carnivore times, maybe even before that. Has been reported in the newspapers and proven by Snowden documents. Along with the NSA unilaterally breaking the no spying agreement with the UK.
NSA cannot request GCHQ to (illegally) spy on you. If the NSA acquires legal grounds to surveil you, such as through the FISC, they may. Although, given that a US citizen is much more likely to use US based service providers, they would likely work with the FBI to obtain your communications than go overseas. http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/pdf/524001r.pdf
> C1.1.4. DoD intelligence components shall not request any person or entity to undertake any activity forbidden by Executive Order 12333 (reference (a)).
Similarly, GCHQ cannot ask NSA to illegally spy on you. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/23/section/1
> it shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to secure that no request for assistance in accordance with the agreement is made on behalf of a person in the United Kingdom to the competent authorities of a country or territory outside the United Kingdom except with lawful authority.
And of course you may assume that such agencies violate these governances, but that would show a lack of understanding of the bureaucratic nature of such agencies.
As of this past year, GCHQ are allowed to spy on whomever they want, wherever they want, however they want (including hacking and the use of malware). This includes British citizens and MPs.
They don't need the NSA for this anymore.
Absolutely, and this is highly problematic. If it was British intelligence hoovering up my info and using it for their own government use I wouldn't see a problem with it. Or rather, I wouldn't see it nearly as much of a problem as an American agency doing it to me.
Them sharing that data with the US is where I have an extreme problem with it. It's an obvious end-around the constitution. This is where US agencies can now use that data to put US citizens under their jurisdiction into prison. That is unacceptable.
I think a lot of my posts last night come off as me defending the NSA/CIA but that support is limited to a very narrow mission. Intelligence gathering on foreign powers.
> Along with the NSA unilaterally breaking the no spying agreement with the UK.
Meh. Those agreements are political grandstanding and nothing else, all participants understand that fact. No one actually believes the US and UK will not spy on each other as much as possible.
Spying on foreign powers? That's part of the game. Every single country is doing it to the US, and I see absolutely no moral issue being better than them at it.
> Spying on foreign powers
Foreign governments would be one thing (IMO still probably wrong, especially so if it's an ally), but US agencies are spying on all foreign citizens.
> Every single country is doing it to the US
Yeah, source please. And scale matters.
>Yeah, source please. And scale matters.
I've seen the argument parroted around in the comments but it makes no sense. Bangladesh, Tanzania, Namibia, Laos, Cyprus, Rwanda, Haïti, Somalia just to name a few of the many who lack the resources to spy on a foreign superpower and have other more important priorities to deal with.
Somehow they also fail to understand that CIA and NSA were created in a specific historical (post-WW2 / cold war) context that has now expired. They have outlived their initial purposes and found other ways to justify their existences and budget since.
Every major nation does this kind of thing to each other to keep the others in check. Trust but verify.
People who support this stuff support it so long as the other guy is the one extralegally monitored.
It's also bizarre to make that distinction in the first place. If you're OK with mixing in other people's business, why would it be forbidden to mess with your own?
From here it seems like a bunch of brainwashed by propaganda people repeating something without taking a minute to think about it.
Or how the contra were funded, or any other of the many unacceptable thing the US did and/or funded.
Sorry but your position is only acceptable to you because you're not on the receiving end and living on the bully.
Rest assured that when law forbids them from spying on their own citizen they instantly find a loophole by asking and giving free way to a foreign agency to spy on US citizen for them in exchange for them spying on their citizens and swapping the collected data.
I must be missing something. How was 9/11 funded?
Do you know what 9/11 really is (the intentions, terrorist involvements, etc)? Never. Neither do I. We just (have to) believe what the main stream media says about it. That's it.
Given that the ThinThread project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThinThread) was discontinued 3 weeks before 9/11, I suspect that there is a high probability for NSA to be involved in 9/11.
To get yourself motivated, I would suggest you to see Person Of Interest, the complete series: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Person_of_Interest_%28TV_serie...
Thanks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_befo...
Also the french journalist that has authored the article “September 11: the French had long known” got prosecuted for breaching state secret by exposing that France services had prior knowledge and had passed the information in january of 2011.
The probe against Dasquié stems from his April 16 article
in Le Monde, titled “September 11: the French had long
known,” which said French intelligence services, the
General Directorate of External Security (DGSE), had
warned their U.S. counterparts of a possible terrorist
plot that involved the hijacking of planes and crashing
them into buildings some eight months before 9/11,
according to international news reports.
The article contained excerpts from a DGSE file titled
“Aircraft hijack plan by radical Islamists”—part of a
328-page classified report on al-Qaeda activities, which
Le Monde said it possessed. One excerpt from the report,
dated January 5, 2001, said al-Qaeda had a list of
potential airline targets, which included the United and
American Airlines carriers used in the 9/11 attacks, the
AP said. Le Monde said the DGSE files in its possession
contained maps, analyses, graphics, and satellite photos,
Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported.
Ha, well in part because I am trying to frame this position for the HN audience. And also because it's an extremely serious claim, though even without the foreknowledge component there is clear criminal behavior on the part of multiple US administrations.
I didn't know about the French journalist you mention, but I am aware of
* Dozens of foreign governments warning the US in advance
* The CIA puting a memo on Bush's desk a month before detailing an imminent terrorist attack involving hijacking planes
* Identification of the hijackers by multiple FBI agents, who in some cases had informants living with the hijackers and who were aware that in flight school the hijackers were uninterested in learning to take off and land planes.
* Able Danger, a SOCOM and DIA effort that identified 2 of 3 Al Qaeda cells active in the 9/11 attacks, including ringleader Mohammed Atta up to two years prior to 9/11
* William Binney claiming that the NSA did have the raw intelligence to uncover the 9/11 plot, though that intelligence may not have been processed in time.
* Historically similar plans for a false flag like Operation Northwoods
* The death of Iraq weapons inspector David Kelly, just two days after being questioned aggressively by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee
* Various whistleblowers like Susan Lindauer who claim to have had foreknowledge and tried to warn their superiors
* Wire transfers from Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US under Bush, directly to two hijackers. Bandar is also implicated in illegal arms dealing and is so close to the Bushes that the family themselves nicknamed him "Bandar Bush".
* War games on the day of 9/11 that were remarkably similar to the real event, and confused the response effort.
So, I agree. It's more likely than not certain people had foreknowledge and exploited it for the purpose of war profiteering. Even though I have been reading about this for a long, long time, sometimes it's still hard to imagine that anyone could be so wicked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Ladin_Determined_To_Strike...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_(weapons_expert)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Danger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandar_bin_Sultan_Al_Saud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-k...
The Swiss Banking Act of 1934 is an indicator of the magnitude of change that can occur when banking privacy is not respected.
This entries are years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_for_Worldwide_Interban...
Unless stated otherwise, NSA is there, even here.
One of the key elements of the lecture is pwning the central bank of the target country in order to frame political oponents by creating false transactions to terrorist groups.
Aggressive spying has been standard since forever. If you are outraged it means you have not been paying attention. This is not new.
Then again show us how Liberia has been into the aggressive standard since forever, or even how this forever existed before 20th century.